Part 28 (1/2)

Fraffin felt himself stretched for a moment on the rack of his own vision, remembering days when he'd lived among the natives -- manipulating, maneuvering, eavesdropping, learning, listening to sn.i.g.g.e.ring Roman boys talks of things their elders had forgotten even to whisper. In his mind, Fraffin saw his own villa with sunglow on a brick walk, gra.s.s, a tree, a planting of petulant forsythia. That's what she'd called them -- ”petulant forsythia.” How clearly he could see in his mind the young pear tree beside the walk.

”They die so easily,” he whispered.

Kelexel put a finger to his cheek, said: ”I think you're just a touch morbid -- all this emphasis on violence and death.”

It wasn't in the plan, but Fraffin couldn't help himself. He glared at Kelexel, said: ”You think you hate such things, eh? No, you don't! You say you're attracted by such things as this pretty native of yours. I hear you fancy the native clothing.” He touched a sleeve of his jacket, a curious caressing gesture. ”How little you know yourself, Kelexel.”

Kelexel's face went dark with anger. This was too much! Fraffin exceeded all bounds of propriety!

”We Chem have locked the door on death and violence,” he muttered. ”Viewing it as a dalliance, no more.”

”Morbid, you say?” Fraffin asked. ”We've locked the door on death? No longer for us, is it?” He chuckled. ”Yet, there it stands, our eternal temptation. What do I do here that attracts you so -- attracts you so much that in the very voice of admission you inquire about that which repels? I'll tell you what I do here: I play with temptations that my fellow Chem may watch.”

Fraffin's hands moved as he talked -- chopping, cutting gestures that exposed the ever-young flesh, active, vibrant -- small hairs curling on the back of the fingers, nails blunt, flat.

Kelexel stared at the man, caught in the spell of Fraffin's words. Death-temptation? Surely not! Yet, there was a cold certainty in the idea.

Watching Fraffin's hands, Kelexel thought: The hand must not overthrow the mind.

”You laugh,” Kelexel said. ”You think me amusing.”

”Not just you,” Fraffin said. ”All is amus.e.m.e.nt -- the poor creatures of my caged world and every last blessed one of us who cannot hear the warnings of our own eternal lives. All warnings have one exception, eh? Yourself! That's what I see and that's what amuses me. You laugh at them in my productions, but you don't know why you laugh. Ahh, Kelexel, here's where we hide the awareness of our own mortality.”

Kelexel spoke in shocked outrage: ”We're not mortal!”

”Kelexel, Kelexel -- we're mortal. Any of us can end it, cease the rejuvenation, and that's mortal. That's mortal.”

Kelexel sat silently staring. The Director was insane!

For Fraffin, the everlasting awareness which his own words had aroused foamed across his mind and, receding, exposed his rage.

I'm angry and remorseful, he thought. I've accepted a morality no other Chem would entertain for a moment. I'm sorry for Kelexel and for all the creatures I've moved and removed without their knowing. They sprout fifty heads within me for every one I cut off. Gossip? A Collector of gossip? I'm a person of sensitive ears who can still hear a knife sc.r.a.ping toast in a villa that no longer exists.

He remembered the woman then -- the dark, exotic chatelaine of his Roman home. She'd been no taller than himself, stunted by native standards, but lovely in his sight -- the best of them all. She'd borne him eight mortal children, their mixed blood concealed in the genetic melt. She'd grown old and dull of face -- and he remembered that too. Remembering her blunted look, he saw the black throng, the mixed-up disasters of their mingled genes. She'd given him something no other could: a share in mortality that he could accept for his own.

What the Primacy wouldn't give to know about that little interlude, he thought.

”You talk like a madman,” Kelexel whispered.

We contend openly now, eh? Fraffin thought. Perhaps I move too slowly with this dolt. Perhaps I should tell him now how he's caught in our trap. But Fraffin felt himself swept up in the flow of his own anger. He couldn't help himself.

”A madman?” he asked, his voice sneering. ”You say we're immortal, we Chem. How're we immortal? We rejuvenate and rejuvenate. We achieve a balance point, frozen short of final destruction. At what stage in our development, Chem Kelexel, are we frozen?”

”Stage?” Kelexel stared at him. Fraffin's words were firebrands.

”Yes, stage! Are we frozen in maturity? I think, not. To mature one must flower. We don't flower, Kelexel.”

”I don't . . .”

”We don't produce something of beauty and loveliness, something which is the essence of ourselves! We don't flower.”